Cheriton Hampshire Family History Guide
Cheriton is an Ancient Parish in the county of Hampshire. Tichborne, Beauworth, and Kilmeston are chapelries of Cheriton.
Alternative names: Cheriton with Tichborne, Cherytone, Churton Chyritone
Parish church: St Michael
Parish registers begin:
- Parish registers: 1557
- Bishop’s Transcripts: 1724
Nonconformists include:
Table of Contents
Adjacent Parishes
Parish History
A History of the County of Hampshire 1908
The 3,264 acres of land comprised in the parish of Cheriton are made up of high down country sloping in every direction towards the village, which lies in a river valley almost in the centre of the parish.
Cheriton Wood lies away to the north-west of the parish, while stretching west of the wood is the wide plain on which the Battle of Cheriton was fought on 29 March, 1644.
The main road from Winchester to Petersfield runs through to the south of the parish and a lane branching off a few yards past Hockley House leads in a north-easterly direction to the village. As it approaches down-hill, a small unobtrusive house lying back on the south side of the road is known as the Flower Pots Inn. Beyond this are two or three groups of thatched cottages facing south-west, while along the north side of the road runs the high wall of the rectory garden.
At the end of this wall at the bottom of the hill the road turns sharply north past the gates of the rectory into the middle of the village. Immediately in the foreground is the village green, through which flows a tributary of the Itchen, running a north-westerly course through the parish, intersecting the village with many branches and crossed by several light bridges.
In the centre of the green and on either side are several old thatched and tiled cottages, some half-timbered, for the most part picturesquely grouped behind narrow well-cultivated gardens. North-west of the green a narrow wooden bridge leads over one of the small streams to an open field, across which a well-trodden pathway runs south to the low white gate of the churchyard and to the low square-towered church of St. Michael, which stands here immediately west of the village. The rectory, a fine red-brick house dating from the early years of the eighteenth century, stands close to the church on the south.
On the east side of the village is a Congregational chapel, built in 1862, near by which are the Board Schools, built in 1876.
Leaving the green and the river and the cottages around it, close by the inn which bears the sign of the Prince of Wales’ Feathers, and calls itself the Hampshire Hunt Inn, the main village street continues in a circuitous north-easterly direction running east of the river, between picturesque low-thatched cottages, the Bricklayers’ Inn, and two or three obtrusive modern villas, to that part of the village which is known as North End, and from here continues north through Tichborne parish to New Alresford. As the road leaves the parish Cheriton Mill, with the Mill Cross, stands away on the river to the east.
South of the green and village, the village street curves slightly to the south-east to meet the main road from Winchester to Petersfield on Lane End Down, over which the main road descends to an outlying portion of Cheriton known as Lane End hamlet, which is also approached from Cheriton by a narrow lane through the water meadows.
Here the watercress industry is in full progress, since the river with its luxuriously growing watercress beds makes a detour between and behind the several cottages grouped here on its way north-west to Cheriton. Immediately beyond Lane End hamlet the road enters Hinton Ampner parish and so passes on east towards Petersfield.
The soil of the whole parish is chalk and clay, with a subsoil of chalk, producing wheat and oats and green crops. Of the total acreage 1,660 acres are given up to arable land, 470 are permanent grass, and 370 woodland. Of the woodland Shorley Copse in the south-east of the parish covers the widest stretch of country, and close to the wood are the Shorley Pottery Works, which afford a special source of employment for some of the villagers.
Beauworth, now a civil ecclesiastical parish, was formerly the south-eastern corner of Cheriton parish, and was separated from Cheriton by Order in Council of 4 February, 1879.
The church of ST. MICHAEL, CHERITON, built on a mound to the west of the village, is in the main a thirteenth-century building. It has a nave and chancel of equal width, 19 ft. 6 in., the chancel being 39 ft. 6 in. long and the nave 47 ft. 3 in., but the former has been lengthened in the fifteenth century. The nave has arcades of three bays, and aisles 8 ft. wide, with a south porch and west tower, all originally of thirteenth-century date, but the tower and aisles have been repaired and partly rebuilt in the eighteenth century and later.
The chancel, the added eastern bay of which is built on the east slope of the mound, has a four-light east window with fifteenth-century tracery, and at north-east and south-east two-light transomed windows of the same date, with the difference that in the north window the lights below the transom are cinquefoiled, and in the south they are shouldered and have rebates for wooden frames.
The western part of the chancel is lighted by a pair of thirteenth-century lancets on each side, and there is a small priest’s door of the same date to the east of those on the south side. The external masonry of all the thirteenth-century work has been renewed. At the south-east is a trefoiled piscina with a shelf and two brackets, but no drain; it is of thirteenth-century work probably moved eastward to its present position.
The chancel has a decided lean to the north from the axis of the nave, probably due to an error in setting out when building round an older chancel. The nave preserves the width of the older and probably aisleless nave to which the former chancel belonged, the arcades of three bays dating from c. 1220 (the date at which, it may be presumed, the aisles were added). They have pointed arches of two chamfered orders, and round columns with moulded capitals and bases with spurs, the latter all modern except part of that of the first column from the east in the north arcade.
Both aisles have square-headed two-light east windows of the fifteenth century, but all the others are of modern date with wooden frames.
The south porch has a thirteenth-century outer arch with moulded capitals, the inner doorway having a modern wood frame, and the north door of the nave being of like character, but blocked with masonry. On the east jamb of the outer arch of the south aisle is an incised sundial, and on either side of the opening are pieces of elaborately traceried fourteenth-century stonework, built into the walls.
The tower has a thirteenth-century eastern arch of two square orders with a string at the springing, but externally shows no mediaeval work, being faced with eighteenth-century brick and flint work. It has a south door of this date. The roofs of the church are modern and red-tiled, that of the nave being carried in one span over nave and aisles.
The font, near the south door of the nave, is modern, as are all the internal fittings, including a stone pulpit.
There are six bells by Warren recast from the old ring of five, four of which were by John Stares, 1746.
In 1718 the Rev. Morgan Jones, rector, by a codicil to his will, left £100 to be laid out in land, the annual rent to be for ever paid towards the schooling of the children of the poor of the parish. A piece of land called Northpits in the parish of Chawton was purchased containing about four acres, producing £10 a year or thereabouts.
The plate of Cheriton church consists of a silver communion cup of 1621, a paten of 1698, and a modern paten. At Beauworth there is a modern set of electro-plate.
The first two books of the Cheriton registers, including Beauworth, contain all entries from 1577 to 1740, and 1656 to 1779, respectively. The third book is the marriage register 1754–1812, and the fourth that of baptisms and burials 1742–1822.
In 1828 Elizabeth Goodrich, by will proved this date, directed her trustees to purchase sufficient stock to produce £20 a year, interest to be applied for the benefit of the poor of the parish. The legacy (after payment of duty) is represented by £600 consols with the official trustees.
Source: A History of the County of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight 1908. The Victoria History of the Counties of England Volume 3, ed. William Page. London Archibald Constable and Company Limited.
The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales 1870
CHERITON, a village and a parish in Alresford district, Hants. The village stands near the Guildford, Alton, Alresford, and Winchester railway, 3 miles S by W of New Alresford, and 6¾ E of Winchester; has a post office under Alresford; and was the scene of a battle in 1644, called Alresford fight.
The parish comprises 3, 030 acres. Real property, £7, 647. Pop, 621. Houses, 128. The surface is partly hilly.
The living is a rectory, united with the p. curacies of Beauworth, Kilmeston, and Titchbourn, in the diocese of Winchester. Value, £1,192. Patron, the Bishop of Winchester. The church is early English; and has a tower partly transition Norman, partly modern. Charities, £12.
Source: The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales [Wilson, John M]. A. Fullarton & Co. N. d. c. [1870-72].
A Topographical Dictionary of England 1848
CHERITON (St. Michael), a parish, in the union of Alresford, hundred of Fawley, Winchester and N. divisions of the county of Southampton, 3 miles (S. by W.) from Alresford; containing, with the tything of Beaworth, 709 inhabitants.
This parish participated in the conflicts of the civil war, and a battle took place here, called the battle of Alresford. It is situated on the road from Winchester to Petersfield, and comprises 2980 acres, the soil of which is in general chalky; 135 acres are common or waste.
The living is a rectory, with Kilmeston and Titchbourn livings annexed, valued in the king’s books at £66. 2. 6., and in the patronage of the Bishop of Winchester: the tithes of Cheriton and Beaworth have been commuted for £625. 10., and the glebe comprises 160 acres, with a glebe-house. The church was erected in 1745.
Source: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis 1848
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Administration
- County: Hampshire
- Civil Registration District: Alresford
- Probate Court: Pre-1845 – Court of the Peculiar of Cheriton with Kilmeston and Tichborne, Post-1844 – Courts of the Bishop (Episcopal Consistory) and Archdeaconry of Winchester
- Diocese: Winchester
- Rural Deanery: Pre-1845 – None, Post-1844 – Alresford
- Poor Law Union: Alresford
- Hundred: Fawley
- Province: Canterbury